From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from list by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.71) id 1QMIgn-00087n-Dv for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 17 May 2011 07:43:49 -0400 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:59047) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QMIgk-00086y-FF for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 17 May 2011 07:43:47 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QMIgj-00047v-64 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 17 May 2011 07:43:46 -0400 Received: from e24smtp03.br.ibm.com ([32.104.18.24]:50667) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QMIgi-00047Z-Se for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 17 May 2011 07:43:45 -0400 Received: from /spool/local by e24smtp03.br.ibm.com with XMail ESMTP for from ; Tue, 17 May 2011 08:43:38 -0300 Received: from d24relay01.br.ibm.com ([9.8.31.16]) by e24smtp03.br.ibm.com ([10.172.0.139]) with XMail ESMTP; Tue, 17 May 2011 08:43:35 -0300 Received: from d24av01.br.ibm.com (d24av01.br.ibm.com [9.8.31.91]) by d24relay01.br.ibm.com (8.13.8/8.13.8/NCO v10.0) with ESMTP id p4HBeYAp4644970 for ; Tue, 17 May 2011 08:40:34 -0300 Received: from d24av01.br.ibm.com (loopback [127.0.0.1]) by d24av01.br.ibm.com (8.14.4/8.13.1/NCO v10.0 AVout) with ESMTP id p4H9hWBv026424 for ; Tue, 17 May 2011 06:43:32 -0300 Received: from [9.18.196.159] ([9.18.196.159]) by d24av01.br.ibm.com (8.14.4/8.13.1/NCO v10.0 AVin) with ESMTP id p4H9hVPI026407 for ; Tue, 17 May 2011 06:43:31 -0300 Message-ID: <4DD25F63.3070007@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 08:43:31 -0300 From: Manoel Rebelo Abranches User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110424 Thunderbird/3.1.10 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: grub-devel@gnu.org Subject: Network branch Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit x-cbid: 11051711-9254-0000-0000-000005196894 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 32.104.18.24 X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 11:43:47 -0000 I'm working in a NET branch (http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/grub/branches/net/) and have submitted some patches for network booting using tftp protocol and Open Firmware as the card driver (the implementation is sufficiently generic to utilize usual card drivers). This has been tested in P5, P6 and P7. Although these patches were still not reviewed they have some great advantages when compared with yaboot: 1 - We can set larger block sizes (and then get larger files), a limitation in some firmware versions. 2 - Less memory usage. In yaboot the file is all downloaded in a buffer before is efectivelly used. Due to some file abstractions the file is nearly doubled in memory. In GRUB we free the memory used by the packets already read,then much less memory is necessary (useful in some big INITRD files). 3 - Better user interface. This version is already very stable and I did many tests and fixed some bugs (in our lab there are some people already using it instead of yaboot) We still have to add support for PXE using UNDI. If someone would like to help in this regard, I will try to look at it in the near future. Some things that still have to be done: 1 - Support for PXE. 2 - Support for ipv6. 3 - Other protocols beside TFTP, like DHCP and TCP based protocols. -- Best regards, Manoel R. Abranches Software Engineer - LTC - IBM - Brazil